


Harvest Time

by xenacryst



Category: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Genre: Bondage, Multi, Shakespeare, Threesome, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-17
Updated: 2008-09-17
Packaged: 2017-10-01 23:29:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenacryst/pseuds/xenacryst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a carefree summer for Oberon and Puck, but the seasons turn and harvest comes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harvest Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Elke Tanzer in the Yuletide 2006 challenge. Thanks to my beta readers J and pyrefly, and Puck himself for personally running the Yuletide matching program.

There was a rustling of feet and quiet laughter as Oberon struggled awake. Leaves tickled against his skin. As he tried to move, he found that vines had bound him, hand and foot, and more. He wondered sluggishly what Puck had done; he remembered uncommonly good drink and the air of a warm summer evening settling around them. He heard the laughter again, laughter that was unlike Puck's, and felt the vines pressing against his skin. Peering through leaves and branches, he drew in his breath sharply as he caught sight of a shapely form clad austerely in English leathers and lace.

The form smiled and laughed in a low alto at the frown that overtook his face.

* * *

"You will find him in a bower 'neath the oak trees two nights hence. Have him drink this draught, and then," she waved a hand airily, "leave him to the night as you please."

Titania's instructions were short and as clear as Puck could reasonably expect. He considered that she had, in fact, been rather vague as to the exact method for getting him to drink the stuff (he'd taken a whiff and found it powerfully akin to bog water with a lingering cloying sweetness). So he'd found a nice bottle with a label bearing the words "Finest of Bottom's Shire" and a scrawl of "for Puck" and poured in the contents of the horn Titania had given him.

He knew where to find the faerie king, of course. Since midsummer, the two had taken to spending much time in each other's company. They wore their friendship like an old and comfortable garment, passing the nights together in one wooded dale or another. They poked fun at the flowers, laughed at acorns, and drank in the starlight as it filtered through the trees.

* * *

"Ah, Puck my dear good fellow, tell me again where you managed to procure this fine drink?"

Puck silently rolled his eyes at his lordship's questionable taste. "As it says on the bottle, it's from that fellow Bottom. You do remember him, yes?" Puck waved his hands at the sides of his head, imitating a pair of floppy ears. "He claims his brews have been ever so much better since he got his head out of his ass." He pranced around a little longer, kicking tufts of grass and braying off-pitch, before collapsing beside Oberon.

Oberon chuckled at his antics and reached again for the bottle. After several drinks, he was a little far gone already. Leaning unsteadily, his hand missed where the bottle sat beside Puck, nudging instead the inside of his thigh, and he fell into the other's lap.

"Dear me. It seems my aim is a trifle low, and the moon yet barely risen for a night such as this." Oberon lay his head back against the soft nest of moss and leaves and looked up at Puck's angular face shining in the moonlight.

"Dost thou seek something, my lord?" Puck looked back down at him, arching an eyebrow and grasping his wrist lightly.

"Aye, and be it bottle or flesh, as long as I might drink of it." Oberon rumbled and roused himself again, grasping for Puck's leg in earnest this time. More lithe and nimble, Puck squirmed out of the way, his hand still around the king's wrist, and sat straddling his leg.

Oberon's free hand finally found the bottle again, and after taking another swig, he held it to his trickster's lips. "I've not seen thee partake of this sweet poison. Here, drink!" Puck sputtered, keeping his position, but the potion trickled down his throat, tasting of summer, dry grass, and hot memories.

"I like that better, Puck. It would do no good to leave me enjoying this alone." Puck winced slightly, not allowing as to how that had been his very intention, not knowing what cowslips and nectar had gone into its making. In spite of himself, though, he felt the warming effects of the drink and felt his companion stir beneath him.

"My liege, what pleasures you tonight?" His voice was quiet as he kept one hand on Oberon's. His other hand traced patterns through the shirt of leaves that Oberon wore. Puck winked slyly, and suddenly the laces that bound the king's shirt were undone and in his hand. With another quick move, he had them lightly bound around the wrist he had held, tied among the vines beneath them.

Oberon muttered in false indignation, then with a wave of his free hand, he tore open the shirt of leaves that the other faerie wore. His breath caught short again as he gazed on the sculpted body above him, muscles lightly tensed beneath weathered skin. He paused too long, though, and found his other arm caught and bound similarly above his head.

Their clothes of leaves fell from the two bodies, littering the ground around them like an autumn windfall. Puck stood over Oberon where he was bound against the vines. Oberon grinned at their play, but having filled himself with the drink, he stifled a sudden yawn. Puck looked down at him kindly as his head began to roll to the side.

"Ah, good king, I wonder what trick we have played upon you tonight?" Puck sat, reclining in the vines as he watched his friend fall asleep, admiring the body that was still bare beside him. He thought to take in the summer night's air for a time, then leave and let Titania's ladies do whatever it was that they had planned -- and surely it wouldn't hurt to have him found in such an ... interesting state. He pondered idly, and with a yawn of his own, whether he should bribe a wood nymph to tell an exciting story.

* * *

Vines and vapors mingle in the moonlight. Where the last of the bottle spills, the branches take up the drink. Where its effects are sleep on faerie, on plant and flower it gives license for excess. And so the trickster and his king lie bare, save bound by mischievous vines bedecked in a spray of flowers and misty with the morning dew.

* * *

Titania laughed again, a laugh that rustled grasses and convinced the oaks that the height of the year had passed and autumn was to be considered. A laugh that blew a chill across the faerie king's face and set the vines scratching against his bare skin. He remembered the evening before, and the bottle with its sweet promises, sweet and false.

"Puck..." His voice emerged, a whisper and a groan, as he discovered further places where the vines pressed and held him tight. "Puck, what have you done?"

That laugh, and then, "What has your trickster done? I would be more curious to know what you have done yourself, my dear. Where I cast my net for one, it appears two fine fish have foundered." She moved closer to him, then, leathers and silks brushing against skin, catching lightly on twigs and pulling against him. To his side, he was aware of Puck struggling against his bonds, each movement tugging at his own, and he responded, giving truth to whatever lie could have passed by his lips for their current condition.

Titania looked at him again, her eyes flashing moonlight even in the morning sun. A murmur and a voice both soft and harsh, "Yes, I thought perhaps. And these past three fortnights since midsummer, have the two of you been making sport and lying in the grasses? You have enjoyed the season, I dare say, but harvest comes, my lord, harvest comes."

She grasped him suddenly then, and he strangled a cry. Her hand surrounded him as vines tightened and scored his thighs and chest. He felt heat at his back as Puck twisted, now lying against him, breathing against his neck, fear and excitement equally in evidence from his movements.

Seeing Puck's response, Titania laughed that low laugh of bells again, and Oberon thought, as much as he could think at all, that he had not heard her laugh so much, so thoroughly, this season. Then this thought itself withered and blew away as her hands worked the flesh of his groin and ran fingernails across his chest. He was immobilized but for the movements of his companion and his consort. Oak leaves reddened and dried amongst them, their grit and dust mixing with sweat and lust as the heat of the summer moved in a slow dance towards autumn. Silks from Titania's garments caressed where branches scratched their runes in skin, then rag leather lay hot and dark against these missives.

A wind blew hot across the fields and into the oak glade, carrying with it the faintest smell of ice and rain, wheat sheaves drying in the fields and baked breads set out to cool. Yet the sky was clear and the sun still smiled at the morning. Oberon stifled an incoherent sound; the queen's hands worked magic. He felt himself open, unfolding from his center, though still bound by vines and moss and leaves. He felt Puck clawing against his back, emptying the last of summer into him. Then he was coming himself, in a long slow cry that turned the earth and bent it on its course towards winter.

* * *

Oberon did not know how long he lay there, spent, with leaves and moss clinging to his skin. He awoke, the vines dry and holding him no longer. He shivered against an imaginary chill and brought dry leaves against his chest, fashioning a crude shirt. He was alone. There was a hollow in the vines where perhaps another had lain, but he could not remember. He merely looked about, from oak to oak and out towards the ripening fields, and somewhere the wind blew and he heard the words "harvest time" whispered on its breath.


End file.
